


Of Storms and Safe Places

by nothingeverlost



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Storybrooke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingeverlost/pseuds/nothingeverlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice is afraid of storms, among other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Storms and Safe Places

**Author's Note:**

> I ship Jefferson/Alice so hard I’m afraid my heart will break if his love interest ends up being anyone else. How do I keep doing this to myself?

Maybe it was the thunder that woke him, but the moment he opened his eyes all he cared about was the fact that the bed was empty. For just a moment he was trapped in a loop of twenty-eight years and alone again, but he’d escaped Wonderland and could escape the darker thoughts of his own mind too.

“Alice?” He didn’t turn on the light, not yet. There were moonbeams coming through the window, and it was easier to hear without the distraction of artificial light. Once he’d flooded his home with electricity, but he’d been alone them. Now his - their - Gracie slept down the hall in a room he’d spent nearly three decades readying, and his wife slept beside him in bed. Sometimes. Sleep wasn’t easy for her anymore, not when things attacked in both dreams and nightmares.

He’d kill the Red Queen when he had the chance, but for now keeping his girls safe was more important.

“Alice, my little rabbit, are you still in here?” He listened, but it was the flash of lightening that helped him the most. It lit up the room, and the corner where Alice crouched behind a pile of three pillows. She was wearing his robe and one of his cravats around her neck; he’d bought her a lovely blue robe and one of purple as well, that matched one of Grace’s, but she always wanted his. It smelled like him, she’d explained the third time he’d found her wearing it, and from that moment he only wore it enough to make sure it kept smelling.

He moved slowly across the room, his footfall silenced by the thick carpet. He was almost to her when thunder rolled through the sky.

“The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood.” Her eyes were wide as she tried to back into the corner even farther. The walls, however, were solid and she was stuck with nothing more than a pillow to protect her.

“The vorpal blade went snicker-snack, my love. ‘Twas brillig, remember? There was a party, and we danced.” He reached for her, and it hurt what she flinched. The Queen’s death would not be a slow one. Neither Queen, but the Black belonged to the imp. Red was his. 

“No jabberwock?” she whispered. Mostly, since she’d come back, her voice was soft. Whispers didn’t draw attention to way shouting did. His Alice didn’t like attention, unless it was from him or Grace. Or the Cricket, who visited twice a week and knew how to speak softly and move slowly. But then he’d been a cricket once, and knew about being small.

“Gone to dust, rabbit. Less substance than the dregs of a teacup.” This time when he touched her she didn’t pull away. “The pillows are bigger downstairs, love. We can make a mountain of them, and hide in a cave until the storm is over.”

“You’ll come too?” Her tiny hand slipped into his. They’d need extra blankets; she was cold even with his robe.

“Nothing’s going to keep us apart again, remember? I promised.” The first two days after she’d returned, four months ago with the curse break, he hadn’t even slept because he hadn’t been able to look away from her. Exhaustion had led him to the brink of collapse, but she’d crawled into the bed with him and curled against his chest, and he’d slept. Now he managed almost a full night’s sleep, only waking up twice to check on her and getting out of bed only once to creep down the hall to check on Grace. Unlike her parents Grace slept through the night; she had a calm and inner strength that both her parents had lost such a long time ago.

“Do you remember the cave with the walls that glowed? I liked that cave.” She was trying so hard, his Alice, to be who she had been, the brilliant girl who had held his hand as they’d raced from world to world. When the hat had been just theirs, and queens had been something to just spy on.

“I remember there was a pool there, with a hot spring. You pushed me in.” Her feet, when she stood, were as bare as his. He stopped for socks before they left the room, and stuffed a pair in each pocket.

“You wanted to go swimming.” They were only halfway down the stairs when the next clap of thunder hit; if the house hadn’t been so large and well made it would have quivered with the sound. Jefferson folded his body around Alice’s, keeping her between the wall and his body. She gripped his shirt so tightly that he could feel the material give. A button had popped off.

“I hadn’t planned to swim in my clothes. I did enjoy getting them off, though. And yours as well.” It had been on the edge of that heated pool, reached by a door of purple and silver, that Grace had been conceived. He was sure of it. The world had been one that thrived on happy emotions, and they’d spent two weeks there, doing little more than swimming naked, frolicing in the meadow outside the cave, and making love. Nine months later they’d had Grace. 

For four years life had been perfect.

“In here, my lady fair.” When the house was once again silent he led her to the library, the only room in the middle of the house, with no windows and only one door. With a floor and a half above them and rooms on all sides the sounds of the storm should be muffled. Jefferson took a look around the room and scooped her up into an armchair. It would do for a few minutes. He knelt at her feet and put on her socks. “I’m going to make you a nest worthy of a Never Bird.”

“Without a mermaid lagoon?”

“The books.” He gestured at the shelves. “We have to make a concession.”

“So many stories to learn.” She looked at the shelves in wonder, giving him the time to move things around. He pushed a table against the back of the couch, and draped it with a blanket so big that it puddled on the ground. As promise there were pillows on both sides and on top, until the table was hidden and it truly looked like a mountain of pillows. Inside was a cave with more pillows and three eiderdown comforters.

“It’s a rabbit’s warren.” She clapped her hands with delight when he presented it to her, and burrowed inside until only a few strands of golden hair could be seen.

“The very rabbitest of warrens,” he agreed. When he followed her inside he lowered the blanket door behind him, trapping them in darkness. It might have been too dark, but for the arms that crept around his middle and held him tight and the warm breath against his neck. Only when he was alone with her did he dare leave his neck bare. Not that he feared Grace, of course, but he didn’t want to scare her with the reminder that heads had such fragile connections with bodies.

“I don’t feel so lost when I’m with you, my love.” Curled up against him her whisper was not such a quiet thing. He could almost imagine that it was a whisper meant for intimacy, not fear.

“I found you, my Alice, and you found me. And we’re going to stay found, together. For always.” He was never letting her go again. Never letting her push him away and never letting anyone come between them. “I love you, my little rabbit.”

“I love you, Jefferson. I don’t know how I could have ever forgotten that.” Even though the grumble of thunder was a bare whisper she held tight to him, her cheek against his heartbeat.

“You remember now, my Alice, and that’s what matters.” His Alice and his Grace knew him now. And hadn’t, then. Knowing the pain of watching and not having he was glad that they’d been spared that. A small mercy. “You’re here and you’re safe, and we’re a family.”

“Family,” she whispered before she fell asleep.

He was awake much longer, just listening to her breath in the darkness, but finally he slept as well. In the morning when he woke he found that Grace had found them, and slept on the comforter at their feet.

His family.

His.

**Author's Note:**

> There are a few quotes from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwock above. I have this thing for Jefferson and quoting Carroll that I can't escape.


End file.
